Hannah and Her Sisters
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Movie Reviews of Hannah and Her Sisters
Movie Review: Melancholy Delight!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my favorite film for WAY too many reasons to express.I remember seeing it in 1986 when I was in 6th grade, when my mother decided it would do our family good to do something "together," much to our dismay of course. I probably had no idea who Woody Allen was at the time, but when the film was over, my parents and sister panned it rellentlessly. But I genuinely loved it.
I think what I responded to was the genuine conflicts of human nature that were portrayed so believably and effortlessly, and with great comedy and sensitivity. Woody Allen has a keen sense of relationships, particularly those that are untimately flawed and in great crisis. His dialogue is so thrilling thoughout this movie, mostly because his characterizations are so dense and the actors are really given the time to flesh out their portrayals. I once heard that this is the Woody Allen film for those that are weary of Woody Allen films.
Dianne Wiest is so excellent in this film portraying Holly, a lost soul who is often consumed by her feelings of inadequecy, leading her to cope with odd jobs, drug addictions, and failed relationships. My favorite scene in the movie is when she and April (Carrie Fisher) leave their catering gig with an architect (Sam Waterston), who takes a liking in both of them. After touring New York's architectural monuments, it becomes clear that he is more interested in April, leading to a brilliantly written voice-over scene by Weist on the ride home (which is equally sad and funny). Woody Allen turns in his best performance as Mickey, the obsessive-cumpulsive and insecure hypochondriac former husband to Hannah (Mia Farrow). He is a somewhat successful TV producer, desperately struggling with a myriad of existential issues simultaniously (and losing his grip on reality).
The other standout here is Michael Caine, who plays Elliot, who is married to Hannah, but consumed with love for her sister Lee (Barbara Hershey). Caine is amazing as a fumbling fool in love, desperate to pursue Lee and confess his love for her, but also trying to maintain his marriage to Hannah, amidst their own conflicts and insecurities.
One powerful scene (and the longest involving the three sisters) takes place when the three decide to meet up for lunch. Holly has just come from another unsuccessful audition, Hannah begins to sense her husband's unhappiness with their marriage, and Lee is just trying to order her lunch. The dialogue in this scene really fleshes out each characters flaws...Holly's deep insecurities that she will always be both overshadowed by Hannah, and yet reliant on her, Lee's unsaid feelings of guilt about her affair with Elliot, and Hannah's need to mother them both, and keep them in a state of admiration. It is really hard to watch moment, as their insecurities begin to lash out at one another before our eyes, as the camera pans around the table. Simply remarkable. But Allen's Mickey also has some great scenes, especially when his hypochondria takes center stage, and he suspects than all his medical tests are going to spell out his ultimate doom.
Allen manages to effortlessly weave many stories in this film that honor his thematic mainstays: love, death, adultery, joy, sex, family and genuine comedy. It is mostly a film about second chances, and how despite the loads of grief and confusion that life can dish out from time to time, there is always a reason to feel joy.
The ending is classic hollywood (but still believable), with all the characters reaching a satisfying sense of happiness. The irony here is that Holly and Mickey, who could be easily panned throughout the film as the most hopeless characters af all, are given the greatest tribute in the end.
Rounding out the excellent cast are Max Von Sydow as Lee's painter boyfriend, Julie Kavner as Mickey's assistant, Maureen O'Sullivan as Hannah's "boozy old flirt" mother, plus a heap of future celebrities like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and John Turturro.
I also really enjoy the jazz soundtrack, which really parallels the frenetic pace and mood of the film.
Movie Review: A film that has everything it needs; a complete package to put it bluntly...
Summary: 5 Stars
I have not seen a lot of Woody Allen movies; he's one of those directors that I really need to research and dive into. I've seen `Match Point' and loved it, and I've see `The Sweet and Lowdown' and thought it was decent, but his classics like `Annie Hall' and `Hannah and her Sisters' had truly gone unseen by my eyes. Then last weekend I decided to look into some of Allen's films and I came across `Hannah and her Sisters'. Now, as a huge fan of Michael Caine, and knowing that he won the Oscar for his performance in this film, I quickly grabbed this DVD and brought it home. To my astonishment, `Hannah and her Sisters' is not just a good movie, it is a phenomenal movie.
Hannah is the most stable and successful of the three sisters focused on in this film. She is married, has a home, a career and children. Her sister Holly is struggling to become an actress and is often borrowing money from Hannah to support her `struggles'. Their youngest sister Lee is living with an ornery artist whom Lee wishes she could build the courage to leave. Holly resents Hannah for her success; resentment that is mostly misplaced and obviously stems from self-loathing. Hannah's husband Elliot has fallen in love with Lee and entertains the idea of an affair but lacks the courage to really do something about it. Hannah's ex-husband Mickey is a hypochondriac who fears he is dying and, in the process of trying to find himself, begins to rekindle a past romance with Holly.
As the lives of this close nit family interconnect and intertwine, `Hannah and her Sisters' becomes deeply rooted in the heart of the audience. This is the type of `dramedy' that works on so many levels. It has the right touch of humor (Woody Allen is hysterical) and it has the right amount of tension (Holly's life in particular is tense and at times uncomfortable), it has the right amount of drama (the whole `Elliot loves Lee, Lee loves Elliot, but what about Hannah' thing is drama with a capital D) but most importantly it has the perfect amount of warmth and tenderness to make for a complete package.
The acting is flawless across the board, but the Academy got it right by singling out Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest for Oscars. As Elliot and Holly respectively, Caine and Wiest bring so much humanity and raw emotion to this film. They are by far the most conflicted characters in the film and in the end they are the most memorable. Woody Allen though should not go by without mention. As Mickey he serves up most of the comedic relief in the film, cutting a lot of tension with his quick witted humor. He's so natural here, so enjoyable. Mia Farrow is soft and tender as Hannah, sympathetic and relatable, and Barbara Hershey is splendid as Lee, the center of Elliot's affections and the audience's attention whenever she's gracing the screen. Maureen O'Sullivan and Lloyd Nolan are flawless as the parents to these three girls, and they share some of the films funniest banter (O'Sullivan in particular is hilariously on-point). Even small supporting roles by the likes of Max von Sydow (flawless actor), Carrie Fisher and Sam Waterston are executed with delicate precision and dedication. Not a single performance feels out of place or forgettable. Each and every actor belongs in their role and commits one-hundred percent.
In the end `Hannah and her Sisters' is a stupendous film. In fact not only did I watch the film once more before it was due back to the video store, but upon returning it I made my way over to `Best Buy' and purchased the film for the DVD library. `Hannah and her Sisters' is a film I consider to be the complete package (I think I already said that once) and it is not a film that will quickly grow old or tiring. If you have yet to see this masterpiece then I urge you to bump this to the top of your `MUST SEE' list. After watching `Hannah and her Sisters' I am sure to put Woody Allen's filmography at the top of my `MUST SEE' list.
Movie Review: Among the top five Allen films. Buy it!
Summary: 5 Stars
`Hannah and Her Sisters' by writer/director Woody Allen is certainly among the top five of Allen's best films, along with `Annie Hall', `Crimes and Misdemeanors', `Manhattan', and `Take the Money and Run'. It is certainly one of my favorites, although I think it is just a bit less tight than the later `Crimes and Misdemeanors' with which it shares a lot of themes and a similarly enormous cast of familiar faces.
One of the most important similarities between the two movies is that there are two parallel, but connected plots and Allen's character is central to the lesser of the two plots, given as much to provide comic relief as to move the story onward. Also in both movies, Allen plays an only modestly successful entertainment business creative player who is not incompetent, but who is not doing well. Both `Hannah...' and `Crimes...' give Allen's character a major love interest and I am very pleased with the fact that `Hannah...' ends with a happy resolution to all the movie's issues. One can be certain that new crises will arise for these characters the day after the final scene, but at least for us, they are all in a good place. That sentence has unwittingly shown an important fact about this movie. We care for these characters. We may not be too concerned about the fate of Carrie Fisher, Max Von Sydow, Tony Roberts, Daniel Stern, Maureen O'Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, or John Turturro who appear on the screen for just a few minutes. But, we really develop a strong interest in the fates of the characters played by Allen, Michael Caine, Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest. While Allen is simply playing his usual nebbish, I cannot for the life of me see how the Academy Awards singled out Wiest from the performances of Caine and Farrow, which I think are equally strong.
Like all of Allen's movies since `Manhattan', the jokes are much better integrated into the story and they are much less predictable than the sight gag of Allen's pistol carved from a bar of soap turning into a handful of suds in the rain in `Take the Money and Run'. This makes them both more fun and droller, as when the very serious Max Von Sydow says he does not sell his paintings by the yard. Allen also continues to use wordless visual gags as when he empties a sack of Catholic religious items, finishing up with a loaf of Wonder bread and Hellman's mayonnaise.
New York City plays almost as big a part in this movie as it does in `Manhattan', with the gimmick of an architect's showing off his favorite buildings as a way of giving us a tour of some of Manhattan's more attractive sights. Even the gritty Greenwich Village streets give up some of their charm as Caine chases down Barbara Hershey in order to bump into her with a rationale for her to show him to a nearby used book shop.
We can also add this to the list of the many Allen movies where one or more characters, especially Allen's character, end up in a theatre watching a classic film. In this case, it's the Marx brothers in `Duck Soup', arguably one of their funniest.
If you are not a rabid Woody Allen fan, I would recommend this movie above almost all others for purchase. Like all his films, there are virtually no special features, but the movie is longer than average and has one of his very best stories and very best collection of characters.
Movie Review: Woody's Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
Hannah and Her Sisters accomplishes an absolutely amazing task: it presents a huge collection of vastly different characters, and lets you identify with every single one. It is the mother of ensemble pieces, and Woody Allen the director gives exactly the correct amount of screen time to every character.
Hannah is the emotional center of the family depicted in the film, but a half-dozen characters carry as much weight. Mia Farrow's Hannah is married to Michael Caine as Elliot, and Hannah is one of those glue-of-the-family people who carry not only their own burdens, but also those of friends and family - which in Hannah's case includes her parents, her husband, her adopted children, her sisters and her ex. Elliot loves Hannah, and depends upon her, but opens the movie with a full-blown mid-life-crisis passion for Hannah's equally passionate sister, Lee, played by Barbara Hershey. Michael Caine earned his Academy Award as Elliot, as he makes a character who fantasizes about being unfaithful to "the perfect woman" believable and sympathetic. Mr. Allen does some of his best writing and directing, and this picture-perfect cast brings these characters to believable life. Hershey makes you understand why Elliot longs for Lee, and Caine makes you believe that he can love Hannah while simultaneously being driven mad by the presence of the sensuous Lee.
Lee is attached to Max Von Sydow's Frederick, a prickly and aloof artist who thinks it more important that the people who might buy his artwork are intellectually in step rather than just having the money to buy the paintings. In one of the best scenes of the film Daniel Stern plays Dusty, a newly rich Rock Star who comes to Frederick's studio looking for something to complement a new Ottomon - missing the "art" before his very eyes as Frederick fumes to his boiling point. Frederick is an older man, and he treats Lee as inferior in every way, when the truth is that he relies on her to keep from sliding off the deep end.
Dianne Wiest earned the second acting Academy Award as Holly, the sister most diametrically opposed to the serene and composed Hannah. Holly is flaky and neurotic and can't seem to get a handle on her life. She always finds herself coming up short when compared to her more together sisters or friends such as April, played by Carrie Fisher.
Woody plays the umpteenth screen iteration of his "Woody" persona, which means New York Jewish, neurotic and socially awkward, but his turn as Mickey, Hannah's first husband, is one of his most sympathetic. Mickey and Hannah divorced in fallout over Mickey's low sperm count, but Mickey stays in the fringes of Hannah's extended family, while entertaining the audience with the latest version of Woody's "what-does-life-mean?" schtick.
The film covers two years in the lives of these characters, beginning and ending at Thanksgiving celebrations, but by the final moments, as the camera momentarily frames each of the characters and you're able to consider the arc they've taken during the course of the film, you can't help but think that it has been worth the ride. Some prefer "Annie Hall" as "Woody Allen's Greatest Film," but I prefer the more emotionally satisfying "Hannah and her Sisters."
Movie Review: A Flawless Classic From Woodys Golden Era
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't watch Woody Allen movies these days: the humor has become predictable and forced; the set-ups are obvious; the "sub-text" blatant and frequently not very funny. It's not that he's gone bad (I liked "Bullets Over Broadway", and "Shadows And Fog"), he just isn't as good these days.The Woody Allen of 1984-6 was a different man: he wanted desperately to be taken seriously as an Artist (ironically his major "serious" influence seems to be Bergman, who always considered himself a "Craftsman"), but found his comedies to be much more successful. So we ended up ricocheting between "Love And Death", "Interiors", "Manhattan", "Stardust Memories", while Woody tried to answer the fundamental questions of life and the universe, and why people preferred his funny movies...
I think he got it with "Hanna..."
Unlike most Allen movies, Hanna's subtext creeps up on you. Sure, he starts with a (comedic) premise (and artistic "thesis"), but instead of hitting you over the head with it, he lets it wander between the characters. Perhaps it's due to the large number of plots (three sisters) and subplots (their relationships), forcing him to spread the material around. For the first (and possibly last) time he seems to coalesce the "Artist vs Entertainer" paradox (as if he couldn't figure out that the two were one) into a single film that is (as far as I can tell) flawless.
Yes, I wrote "flawless".
He pulls out a lot of stops too: a huge (by his standards) cast; multiple voice overs (interior character voices); multiple perspectives; a narrative structure that is complex, yet invisible; a story that is completely unpredictable.
But the most compelling elements in this film are the Characters: they're ALL good! He even takes a step away from he usual New York team (ringers Michael Cain and Max Von Sydow are FANTASTIC) and gets the best performances of any Allen film ever. Diane Weise (she may have taken the Oscar for this) is perfect; Mia Farrow is captured here before she turned into Woody Allen; Woody is remarkably realistic (not much neurotic mumbling here); dammit, they're all good (if you're a Daily Show fan, keep an eye open for Lewis Black). They don't stumble over the "significance" of their dialog (many Allen movies are damaged by the characters' need to articulate their thoughts, although in "Bullets Over Broadway" he was at least able to laugh at this: "Don't Speak!") . They don't even stumble over the significance of their characters. They actually behave like people and the results are remarkably funny.
Yes I wrote "funny".
"Hanna..." is not "Love And Death" funny, but "real people" funny, in a lyrical self-contained circle-of-friends world that Allen often creates (but frequently undermines). So while we might be laughing at them (and with them) we never lose touch with their humanity. As a result their words and actions can take the occasionally sudden and serious (I guess that means "artistic") turn.
It's perfect. Every minute of it.
The DVD is in 16:9 (letter-boxed) and picture and sound seemed fine. There's a trailer, but nothing much else of interest. But who cares, this is such a great film...